MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peruvian jailed ex president Fujimori hospitalized with lung problems

Prison doctors realized on Sunday night that Fujimori was not breathing well, so they gave him oxygen. Shortly after they decided to transfer him to the clinic

Peru's jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori was hospitalized on Monday in Lima after suffering neurological and lung problems, his family doctor revealed. Fujimori, 81, is serving a 25-year jail sentence for ordering two massacres by death squads in 1991 and 1992.

”(The former president) is under evaluation,“ said his doctor, Alejandro Aguinaga, after visiting Fujimori in the Peruvian-Japanese Centennial Clinic.

Aguinaga said he had ”told (the clinic's doctors) to have the neurologist take a look“ at Fujimori, who would also undergo a lung scan. Although the former leader's lung ”is not ventilating perfectly, it is under control,“ said Aguinaga.

Prison doctors realized on Sunday night that Fujimori was not breathing well, so they gave him oxygen. Shortly thereafter, they decided he should be transferred to the clinic.

A source close to the family said Fujimori had been transferred to the clinic for neurological issues, facial paralysis and an increase in blood pressure.

”He is under observation in (the clinic's) intermediate care unit,” where he has been hospitalized several times in previous years, the source said.

Fujimori, who was in office from 1990-2000, was pardoned in December 2017 on humanitarian grounds by then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Critics said the move was in exchange for Fujimori's son helping Kuczynski avoid impeachment.

The former president, who is of Japanese descent, has been held at a police base east of Lima since the pardon was revoked by a Peruvian court in October 2018.